A Buddhist Earth Day Message.

Buddha's foundational teaching of interconnection and interdependence, or co-arising demands that we live in balance with the environment. If we are just as apart of a towering tree as it's leaves, then to recklessly destroy our forests, rivers and oceans is to slowly but exponentially kill apart of ourselves.

The Buddha's teaching on walking the middle ground between extremes of over-consumption and austerity fits perfectly into the modern, environmental practice of living in balance with nature. It's what we speak of today as "sustainability" or living within our means. It's not necessary to live like a cave man to be an environmentalist in the Buddhist sense, as that would be living out of balance in austerity. It's structuring our lives, so that when we utilize nature's resources, we do it in a balanced and sustainable way.

This "one or the other" thinking that exists in the environmentalist debate today is a less skillful approach. We don't have to choose between environmental sustainability and destructive over-consumption. The environment uses our byproducts of exhaled carbon dioxide to live, and our body waste (or that of animals) as fertilizer, so it's a symbiotic relationship of give and take. The problem comes, of course, when we take much more than is given and the entire ecosystem is throw out of balance, endangering all.

Another modern day environmental tenet is recycling, which, again fits snugly within the Dharma. Buddha's robes (and those of his fellow monks) where said to be fashioned from scraps of cloth found discarded and donated by generous families. They would even use scraps from the clothes of dead people donated by grieving families!! How many of us wear second-hand clothes made from discarded fabric?!! However, we don't have to adorn ourselves in tattered cloth in order to leave a soft footprint on the environment. It's a matter of repairing garments that are otherwise perfectly wearable, rather than throwing them in the trash.

Buddha also didn't have a fancy, extensive wardrobe to choose from, but rather only what was necessary. For us, today, that means buying less clothes than we need, which is not only in keeping with the middle path, but also the Buddhist ideal of balanced consumption. It also means donating old clothes, instead of throwing them in the garbage. And less garbage means a less polluted environment; thus, a healthier place to live.

In wrapping up the post, I want to come full circle back to interconnection. As Buddhists, we believe that all sentient beings are reborn upon death. Therefore, we should feel a strong commitment to leave a better world for those beings. To paraphrase a famous quote, the environment is on loan to us from future generations. Let's not ruin it for them--and us. Happy Earth Day everyone!!

~Peace to all beings~

Environmental Global Reset Button.

Recently Cambodian Buddhist monk Bun Saluth was honored by the United Nations for his environmental preservation work in preserving 18,000 acres of forest land in Cambodia. When asked about his monumental efforts he didn't hesitate to say that he was simply following Buddha's example (not just his words); When Buddha was still alive, he used trees and caves as lodging to obtain enlightenment. In this way, he has taught us to love the natural resources and wild animals.

Additionally, I would add that one of the most prominent reasons that Buddhists are often advocates for nature and animals is because of the core teachings upon interdependence. It's not so much protecting the trees out of a sense of moral superiority but rather a normal extension of being awake to the multi-layered essence of life on Earth. When we awaken to the reality that our very existence is dependent upon a healthy planet then it becomes obvious that protecting the trees (and the rest of nature) is an extension of being alive. It is also true that when we cultivate compassion for others we understand how balancing nature is integral in helping to reduce their suffering.

Thich Nhat Hanh says in his new book, "The World We Have" that, The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way. Just like eating a bunch of sugar instead of a meal will give you a rush of artificially inflated energy followed quickly by a depressing physical crash; so to will trashing out planet lead to a crash of the "good times" followed by a deep and painful awakening to a very different world.

I've never been much of a doomsday alarmist but the over-consumption of just about everything by humanity is really starting to show and take its toll. Our greed has over-fished our oceans, poisoned our air, desecrated our forests and swollen our Earth with over-population. It is an unsustainable lifestyle and that centuries long, unskillful behavior is harvesting some sobering karma. I'm not the kind of person who stands on the corner of a busy street, ringing a bell and warning of the "end of the world" but I do see a radical change coming, and I believe awareness is the best tool to adapting.

I can see a time in the near future when our instant, electronic world will crash and fail like an old car in the Mohave desert. This will return us to a simpler way of life where the grocery store is a garden, where the animals are more valuable than cars and where being able to work with others in co-operation will mean the difference between survival and calamity. It won't destroy all of humanity but we'll have to relearn how to live a life similar to that before the industrial revolution, which will be a tough transition for some who lived the delusion that the party would go on forever. We lived through the ugly days of the "Dark Ages" when life was bleak and people died in droves and currently we're living a life of excess that is the exact opposite.

And interestingly, I think it might be a good thing for humanity to get this wake up call because it'll force us to hit the reset button on how we see the world and our resources. It will also mean that we don't have to live again in the "Dark Ages" but we also can't live the life of never-ending consumption either. We'll have to find that sweet spot, or the middle ground where life is the most sustainable. It'll be a shock at first but in the end I think we'll see that living the "hungry ghost" life of over-consumption was never really realistic in the first place.

~Peace to all beings~

Green Buddhism.

Our environment is the ultimate middle-path. In order for life to exist and thrive upon Earth the environmental conditions must be perfectly balanced for optimum benefit. It is because of the importance of this delicate balance that, as a Buddhist, I am also a committed environmentalist.

So, as you can imagine I've been watching with horror like everyone else the volcano of oil gushing night and day from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Ultimately this BP disaster has come about from our collective greed for cheap fuel at the expense of our greater environment to power our excessive lifestyles.

Part of this lifestyle comes from a long human tradition of the ignorance that nature plays in our lives. Humanity has for centuries seen nature as an impediment to its happiness and material success. Because of its ease of exploitation nature was seen not as an equal but merely as a means to an end.

So, we sought to "tame" it to further our desires for material wealth and success. We ignorantly assumed that since we were the "smartest beings" on the planet that we didn't have to live within the limits of nature. We saw ourselves as not only independent from everything else but superior. Thus, nature was there to satisfy our insatiable greed. This was especially embraced by the monotheistic cultures who saw themselves as divine offspring and Earth their property to do with it whatever they pleased. Since in ignorance these cultures believed that they weren't interconnected with other beings, (which would have required them to live in greater harmony) and had been given dominion over all other living things then surely (they thought) pursuing such a individualistic destiny couldn't hurt us.

In Europe, they chopped down tree after tree. They couldn't tear the trees down fast enough to keep up with the insatiable fires of industry. The race to industrial wealth and easy living was so ferocious that soon Europe was nearly completely nude of trees. Yet no matter how much steel was turned into new machines to make our lives easier it wasn't enough for our greed, and so industry accelerated further and further. Once the trees were gone we began burning dirty, toxic materials such as coal and oil. Raw sewage and toxic byproducts from production were pumped mercilessly into pristine rivers, lakes and seas. The cities were dirty and the air hazy and acrid from pollution causing much sickness. Yet our lust for the easy life grew unabated.

Today we humans are waking up one by one from our egotistical binge to one nasty hangover. It is clear now that our actions aren't independent of everything else, and that our greed has sped up our own destruction. Yet still this greed has a strong hold over many people, and like an addict who knows the drug is poison, we continue to use deadly energy regardless of the consequences. Why? Because no one wants to give up living the easy life of cheap energy that enables us to spend that money on pleasure pursuits.

In order to make the right sacrifices to bring humanity more in-line with nature and the middle-path we have to realize that we are all interdependent upon one another. And none more so than Earth herself. Our past actions of environmental rape through excessive industry are already coming back to cause us suffering via climate change--in my belief, that's societal karma bearing fruit. And just like pain is the bodies way of warning us to stop what you're doing, so to is the suffering we experience now from environmental degradation an alert to change our behavior. As we know, karma has an energy of its own, which could be seen in the very real possibility of environmental destruction getting too far gone to reverse course. I fear that could happen soon if we don't take immediate action. This BP spill is one of those pains that should serve as a warning sign. Buddhism demands that we care for nature as much as we care for ourselves.

~Peace to all beings~

The Balancing Buddha.

James: This is a long article and I wanted to add my usual analysis and personal note with a quoted story but I think the author, Joan Gattuso says it all in this very well done article. So I'm going to quote the entire article here. It's a Tricycle piece and while I've been critical of them of late it was mostly in relation to one specific article and I will always recognize good writing regardless of the publication or person. It'll be a bit long but it's a really thoughtful article on the dangers of aestheticism in relation to the Middle Path of balance between aestheticism and extreme sensual indulgence:

"THE MIDDLE WAY is achieved when one reaches that point of cosmic balance between austerity and the creature comforts of the world. The ascetics who were with the Buddha were critical of him because he was no longer living an austere lifestyle. They considered his life too “cushy.” He was eating beautiful food and wearing a fine robe, while they existed on a few grains of rice and slept uncovered on a bed of nails.

The ascetics asked the Buddha, “What kind of teacher and yogi are you? You are soft, weak, indulgent.”

To which the Buddha replied, “I, too, have slept on nails; I’ve stood with my eyes open to the sun in the hot sands beside the Ganges. I’ve eaten so little food that you couldn’t fill one fingernail with the amount I ate each day. Whatever ascetic practices under the sun human beings have done, I, too, have done. Through them all I have learned that fighting against oneself through such practices is not the way.”

Through the years I have known a few ascetic-type personalities who forever deny the body, its needs, and its care. One young man I knew was so physically beautiful and so unhappy and grim. His eating habits were very austere and unpleasant. He always seemed to be miserable in the pursuit of his spiritual awareness. He munched on raw garlic cloves like they were peanuts and insisted they left no pungent odor on his breath. The rest of the world did not agree. I recall one acquaintance saying to this fellow that he would probably throw himself under a train rather than eat a Frito. His response was, “What’s a Frito?” If misery, self-denial and selfimposed suffering were the way to get “it,” we would all have gotten “it” a long time ago.

The Buddha emphasized the Middle Way, which he likened to the successful playing of the lute, the strings being not too taut, not too loose, but with just the right amount of pressure. We all need to seek a way to bring forth such balance in our own lives.

I deeply believe that it is vital to our spiritual practice that we become spiritually disciplined. Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our soul’s journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.

I smile when I recall taking Buddhist friends, Tibetan and American, to the airport. A young monk asked the American Buddhist if he could wheel her carry-on through the airport, because it was maroon and better matched his robes than his own tan one. We all laughed, the woman complied, and the monk was color-coordinated. He may have given up much of this world’s offerings, but within him remained an artistic sense of color—balance.

It isn’t that we can’t enjoy the finer things in life, we just need to know they are not our life. Those practicing the Middle Way know this. They can take in what is offered and available without being consumed by it. Their eyes discern beauty, even from the mundane. Their ears discern harmony from discordant notes. Their taste discerns pleasure from bland food. Their noses discern subtle notes of pleasant fragrance from the rancid.

We would have to be a bit off to choose the mundane, discordant, foul, and putrid to believe these will lead to spiritual awakening. So we choose the pleasant and do not allow it to possess us. When we don’t get what we would prefer, we don’t allow ourselves to become unbalanced and miserable—adding to our own suffering. We see it for what it is, and we are able to remain detached and move on." ▼

From The Lotus Still Blooms: Sacred Buddhist Teachings for the Western Mind, © 2008 by Joan Gattuso. Reprinted with permission from the Penguin Group.

PHOTO CREDIT: The Starving Buddha. Stunning photo by Chiang Mai. The Buddha had thought he would be able to escape the pain of reincarnation and attain nirvana, if he focused on the godhead to the exclusion of all else. So he decided not to eat and drink. The skin slowly shrivelled up and the Greek god-like body, a common feature of Hellenistic art of the time – as well as of scores of other Buddhas in that room -- was consumed in the trauma of wilful self-abnegation. The Buddha’s eyes receded into dark hollows, his cheeks became blades of bone and his rib-cage a shocking skeleton. The facial hair is grey on the dark-blue stone. (James: It was after this starvation period that Buddha settled upon the balanced path of moderation between the two extremes).

~Peace to all beings~